The Sound of Her Voice
' |image= |series= |production=40510-549 |producer(s)= |story=Pam Pietroforte |script=Ronald D. Moore |director=Winrich Kolbe |imdbref=tt0708642 |guests=Debra Wilson as Lisa Cusak, Penny Johnson as Kasidy Yates and Mark Allen Shepherd as Morn |previous_production=Time's Orphan |next_production=Tears of the Prophets |episode=DS9 S06E25 |airdate=10 June 1998 |previous_release=Time's Orphan |next_release=Tears of the Prophets |story_date(s)=51948.3 (2374) |previous_story=Hope and Fear |next_story=Tears of the Prophets }} Summary Onboard the Defiant, Sisko and the crew pick up a distress signal and the voice of Captain Lisa Cusak, whose escape pod has crashed on a remote planet following the destruction of her ship. Although two-way communication has not been established, Lisa transmits her voice constantly as the crew begins the six-day trip to rescue her. O'Brien listens to the sometimes-amusing monologue and is surprised when she — having overheard a conversation between him and Kasidy Yates — suddenly speaks to him. Both realize contact has been established, and Lisa finally knows she will be rescued. The stranded captain reveals she has been giving herself triox injections to compensate for the excess carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, but there is not enough to last until the Defiant arrives. Dr. Bashir advises lowering her dosage, hoping her body will be strengthened enough to help her survive. In the meantime, the crew members agree to take shifts talking to Lisa to keep her alert. Proving to be as good a listener as she is a talker, Lisa has a great sense of humor and a refreshingly positive attitude. She advises Sisko on his romantic problems, helps O'Brien cope with his anger over the war, and even gets Bashir to forget about his work and loosen up. When Lisa runs out of triox, Bashir realizes she cannot survive more than two days — and the Defiant is still three days away. Determined to save his new friend, Sisko gives the risky order to deplete the phaser reserves and use the extra power to increase the ship's speed. They reach the planet's orbit just as Lisa loses consciousness, but there is more bad news — the planet is surrounded by an energy barrier the Defiant cannot penetrate. Sisko, O'Brien, and Bashir put their lives on the line to break through the barrier in a shuttle pod. They are able to reach the planet's surface and locate the crash site, but when they enter the cave where Lisa has taken shelter, they find a skeleton — Lisa has been dead for over three years. O'Brien surmises that the energy barrier must have time-shifted the radio signals, enabling the captain to contact the Defiant crew three years in the future and their messages to travel back to the past. Although Lisa was dead all along, the crew members feel the loss and take her back to Deep Space Nine for an Irish wake among friends. Errors and Explanations Internet Movie Database Revealing mistakes # When Quark muses about how humans in the past were romantic, he pronounces "human" in the normal method, instead of "hew-mon" as Ferengi traditionally do. Maybe this is an attempt at sarcasam! Nit Central # Corey Hines on Wednesday, December 16, 1998 - 7:35 pm: I'm surprised that in all the conversations that they had, not once did the subject of what year it was come up. Maybe not in the question, "Do you know what year this is?" but maybe a question when referening to a special event happening a certain number of years ago. If Lisa said that the Olympia left the Federation 8 years ago and she was dead for over 3 years, then the Olympia actually left in the year 2363, a year before TNG started. Why then is she wearing a 3rd season TNG uniform? Should she be wearing a 1st season uniform? Lea Frost on Wednesday, February 24, 1999 - 1:26 pm: In the same vein, I'm surprised nobody bothered to look up any data on the Olympia, in which case they would have found that it left eleven years ago rather than eight...Seniram 12:37, November 4, 2017 (UTC) Assuming of course that the Olympia wasn’t sent back three years during the crash, without Cusak or the crew realising it! # cableface on Tuesday, April 13, 1999 - 1:39 pm: How come it seems like Starfleet sent the Olympia out on it's mission and then cut all links with it. The body we see still wears the TNG uniform, and Cusack had no knowledge of the war. Did starfleet just abandon them? And even if they didn't, wouldn't it have made sense to recall all their ships at the outbreak of the war? The Olympia may have temporarily lost contact with Starfleet. # Keith Alan Morgan on Sunday, May 02, 1999 - 8:12 am: Why is Captain Cusak shocked that the Federation is at war with the Cardassians? Wasn't the Federation at war with the Cardassians before she left on her mission? Even if the original peace treaty had been signed before she left, is it really that shocking to learn that a former enemy has teamed up with a new ally and attacked again? She probably expected them to abide by the treaty, in order to avoid the horrors of another war. # Anonymous on Wednesday, July 18, 2001 - 5:03 pm: I'm suprised no one in Sisko's crew mentioned using the Bajoran orb of time to go back and rescue Lisa since she meant so much everyone. LUIGI NOVI on Thursday, July 19, 2001 - 12:37 am: Kira said in Wrongs Darker Than Death or Night that it would only work if the Prophets allowed it, and that they would guide her to keep her from changing the timeline. (Remember, she only wanted to see if what Dukat said about Meru was true, not change it). Here, you're talking about changing the timeline, which the Prophets would probably not have allowed. Anonymous on Thursday, July 19, 2001 - 9:13 am: Then how come the prophets didn't stop Darvin from using it to go back in time to kill captain Kirk? This would have changed history bigtime if Sisko and Co. didn't stop him. Mark Stanley on Thursday, July 19, 2001 - 10:56 am: Simple. The Prophets knew that Sisko and Co. *would* stop him. They don't have to guess what's going to happen -- they already know. Saying that if they allow Darvin to use the Orb he might do something they didn't expect is akin to saying that the next time you watch the episode the ending might be different. Mirror Damar on Saturday, July 21, 2001 - 8:31 am: Maybe they wanted to give Sisko the chance to meet Kirk. # Mike Ram on Thursday, May 30, 2002 - 8:17 pm: If the Defiant can't go past warp 9 without it's structural intergirty being breached, how come the Enterprise 1701 can go warp 14 (In "That Which Survives") and the Ent-D can go so fast it crosses over SEVERAL galaxies (In "Where No One Has Gone Before")? Doesn't the Defiant have hull armor? Rene on Thursday, May 30, 2002 - 8:21 pm: 1. The warp scale was changed between the movies and TNG. 2. The traveller. # John A. Lang on Saturday, December 20, 2003 - 7:54 am: At the end, Bashir states that Lisa has been dead for 3 (or more) years. O'Brien speculates that the barrier acted like some kind of "time shift" and the things they were hearing were from 3 (or more) years ago and that the messages they sent to Lisa went thru the same barrier and went backward in time to 3 (or more) years ago...OK...so far, so good. BUT can someone explain this: When the Shuttlepod went thru the SAME BARRIER that the transmissions went thru...why the Shuttlepod didn't go back in time 3 (or more) years and be able to rescue Lisa? LUIGI NOVI on Saturday, December 20, 2003 - 12:08 pm: I understood that the barrier was an energy barrier that only worked this way on EM emissions. Or perhaps the barrier was no longer there when our guys got to the planet. John A. Lang on Saturday, December 20, 2003 - 12:16 pm: There barrier was indeed there..They couldn't beam her out because of it. Also, they had to use a special scan to locate her because they didn't want the Defiant to be lost like the Olympia. Category:Episodes Category:Deep Space Nine